The Gambling Commission’s director of research and statistics believes the UK regulator’s Gambling Survey for Great Britain (GSGB) is only just starting to show the wider positive impact it can have on the industry.
Last week, the Commission released the first tranche of 2024 figures around participation in gambling in the UK, covering January to April.
The latest dataset follows on from the release of the GSGB’s first annual report, which set a baseline figure against which all future data can be compared.
In a blog post, Ben Haden said: “We’re a couple of months on from the release of our first annual report for GSGB and one of the great things that I and the team at the Commission have seen since then is the number of people in the research community, the gambling sector and even more widely, starting to explore and get to grips with what the wealth of data we now have can tell us.
“Feedback is welcome. But whilst we will continue to work hard on refining the GSGB where we need to, I am excited that we are only at the beginning of what this is the start for us in terms of how we will be able to make changes using the GSGB.
“The more research and work that is done using the regular data that the GSGB provides - at scale and high quality – the more we will see its value.”
The GSGB is the Gambling Commission’s new survey on the industry, designed to enhance the data available and to better portray the overall UK industry, including the content or verticals popular with players and pinpointing potential signs of problem gambling.
However, upon the release of the annual report in July, the Betting and Gaming Council admitted its members are “concerned" that the findings "may be unreliable."
The GSGB methodology replaces previous NHS-led investigations and, as such, the UKGC has, on more than one occasion, insisted that the findings cannot be compared with other surveys.
